


pulled the daisies fine

by quidhitch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, dex visits nurseys family in nyc and its rlly cute, ft Nurseys Moms™, obligatory new years eve fic!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 12:11:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9123049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidhitch/pseuds/quidhitch
Summary: “Alright,” Nursey sighs, “since you are a literal demon, let’s play a game. Which of these horribly uncoordinated children do you think is going to fall first?”Dex has never, ever looked more into him.“One in the blue hat,” Dex nods across the rink at a kid no older than four with a Minions coat on, almost bent all the way over trying to keep his balance. It’s just one, two, three movements of his chubby little legs before he pitches forward, his parents arms shooting out to keep him from falling on his face. Dex draws in a sympathetic breath, and Nursey tries not to smile.





	

**i.**

“Hm, so, this would be fun if we weren’t collegiate level hockey players who learned how to skate when we were ten,” Dex deadpans after about five minutes of skating around the Rockefeller Center ice rink.

“This is fun!” Nursey insists, squeezing Dex’s hand through his chunky mittens, “it’s relaxing.”

Off to their left about three different toddlers start crying at once, and Dex gives Nursey a look.

“You are such a whiner.”

“We could be eating right now. It’s been, like, five and a half hours since we last ate.”

“This is romantic!” Nursey laughs, gliding in front of Dex and reaching for his other hand. He can tell Dex is looking just over his shoulder to make sure he doesn’t run into anyone and it makes him fond, even if he knows he’s twenty times more graceful on the ice than on land. Which is to say on the ice he has basic motor skills.

“You know what else is romantic? Sex. We could also be having sex right now.”

A mother with four children hobbling by her legs shoots Dex a dirty look, and Nursey is a little proud that he shoots her one right back. Turning into a true New Yorker.

“You only want me for my body,” Nursey sighs dramatically, sliding back into place next to Dex. He links their arms together and grins as Dex places a somewhat aggressive kiss on his cheek. They skate in silence for a few minutes, now on their second lap around the rink.

“Alright,” Nursey sighs, “since you are a literal demon, let’s play a game. Which of these horribly uncoordinated children do you think is going to fall first?”

Dex has never, ever looked more into him.

“One in the blue hat,” Dex nods across the rink at a kid no older than four with a Minions coat on, almost bent all the way over trying to keep his balance. It’s just one, two, three movements of his chubby little legs before he pitches forward, his parents arms shooting out to keep him from falling on his face. Dex draws in a sympathetic breath, and Nursey tries not to smile.

They go on like that for a while, and Dex is scarily good at picking out who’s about to keel over.

“I have practice,” he tells Nursey, a mirthful edge to his smile, “my boyfriend’s kind of a klutz.”

Nursey blushes and shoves his laughing shoulders away, only to pull him back seconds later for a kiss. Some of the parents are staring at them again and it should make Nursey’s chest roil with the typical anxiety, but it just… doesn’t. He’s just happy.

“Uh oh,” he says under his breath, nodding to a little girl in a poofy pink parka whose parent is preoccupied with a phone call. She teeters for a moment and predictably tips over, letting out a truly awful wail as she goes. Nursey’s heart clenches in his chest as he watches her sit on the ice, fat tears rolling down her cheeks and collecting in the dark hair around her neck, her father still several feet away with his iPhone pressed to his ear.

“Hey,” Dex says quietly, squeezing his hand.

He forces a smile, “I’m fine.”

Dex frowns. “You’re not.”

Before Dex can ask what he’s doing, Nursey is dropping his hand and skating through the clusters of people in front of them, only slowing to a stop when he’s next to the still crying kid. He drops to one knee next to her, a small smile pushing his mouth as her weeping slows to a sniffle.

“Ay chiquita, what a fall, huh?”

She nods, tentative and shy, and gently taps at her knee. “Hurts,” she says in a small voice, and Nursey’s heart breaks clean in two. He nods in understanding.

“Wanna know a secret?”

She takes a second to think about it, before slowly nodding again, the brightness returning to her eyes.

“Hurts less if you keep going.”

She shakes her head, folding her knees up to her chest, “I’m scared.”

“I know,” Nursey sighs, giving her skate a little squeeze, “would you be less scared if Dad held your hand?”

She ages about a thousand years in the span of a moment, her eyes dimming as they flick over to her father and back to Nursey, mouth set in a skeptical line. “He never would.”

And that makes Nursey wants to punch someone like nothing else, but he forces a smile anyways, “Yeah? Maybe not. But you’ve got to ask him to find out.”

“What if he says no?”

Nursey drops his shoulders, “then he says no. But ask him like you really mean it, and maybe he won’t.”

He offers her a hand, and she pauses, eyes still wide and scared. But Nursey smiles his most gentle and reassuring smile, and a few seconds later their gloved fingers are clasped loosely together, skating hand in hand to where her father is still looking for a cell signal at the edge of the rink. Anger sparks in his eyes when he sees them, and Nursey has to remind himself what he looks like, how the rest of the world sees him.

“She fell, sir,” he explains, once they’re in earshot. He tries for his best WPV (white person voice). “I just helped her up.”

The man’s eyes narrow, and he turns his attention his daughter. Nursey’s heart swells when she matches him glare for glare.

“Is this true, Angelique?”

“Obviously, dad.”

They all stand in a circle in silence for a moment, Angelique’s hand still clasped around his, before her father’s expression cools and he gives Nursey a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Nursey resists the urge to straighten up, to roll his shoulders back, instead offering the same smile in return.

“Thanks for your help, son,” he says, and it’s a dismissal.

Nursey doesn’t mind. He squeezes Angelique’s hand and reminds her one last time, “ask like you mean it, kid.”

She shoots him a surer smile as he starts to skate away, and it’s mirrored on his face when he hears her voice behind him. _It was easier to skate holding his hand. Hold my hand, dad._ It’s such a funny world, where he can read his experiences into the life of a stranger and feel a spark of pride like he’s known her for years.

“Sorry,” he tells Dex when he’s in earshot, the words hollow in his throat. Projecting personal experiences onto unsuspecting strangers while leaving his boyfriend in the lurch was _not_ the romantic afternoon Nursey envisioned.

But Dex doesn’t look upset, really. 

In fact, the first thing he does when Nursey is close enough is tug him in by his jacket for a soft, slow kiss, his hands cupping Nursey’s neck. It’s the kind of kiss that makes Nursey feel like he’s literally floating, like the sheer power of their attraction has sucked all the gravity off of the planet.

“What was that for?” Nursey mumbles against Dex’s lips when they pull back.

Dex drops one of his shoulders, tucking a stray curl under Nursey’s beanie, “I just really fucking like you.”

Nursey’s heart jumps to his throat like it always does when Dex says something unassumingly romantic.

“Oh,” he says, grinning as he pulls Dex back in for another kiss, “is that all?”

**ii.**

Nursey likes the way the muscles in Dex’s stomach shift when he presses his fingers in the spaces between his ribs.

Nursey also like the way Dex looks right now, stretched out against the velvety sheets in his childhood bedroom, looking gleefully out of place and simple in such a stylized room. He should’ve told his mother’s that the Possini Euro Hemingson light fixture was a bit much.

“What are you doing?” Dex mumbles, rubbing at his eyes.

Nursey pops the cap off the tube of lipstick in his hand and touches the rich red tip against one of Dex’s ribs. Dex’s stomach goes taut.

“Nursey, what are you doing?” he repeats, sitting up on his elbows and frowning at Nursey.

“Writing,” he says with an eye roll, how could it not be obvious?

“On me?” Dex asks. His hair is sticking up on one side and he’s got Nursey’s shirt around his neck. They’d changed into dryer clothes after skating and maybe had half a bottle of the champagne they were supposed to bring to the party tonight. Oops.

Nursey ignores him and makes large scrawls of red across Dex’s stomach. It’s messy, the tip catches and drags in the valleys of Dex’s skin creating near indecipherable words, but Dex looks so gorgeous. So hot.

“How do you just have lipstick?”

Nursey shrugs, even though Dex has laid back down and can’t see him. “It’s pretty, I wanted it.”

“Isn’t it expensive?”

“If I tell you how much it is, we’ll fight.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“I won’t.”

They’re silent for a while longer. Nursey crawls up Dex’s body, smudging the lipstick on his stomach as he goes. Dex’s eyes flutter open, a little clarity returning to them Nursey hovers above him, a small smile on his face.

“Hey,” Dex says, running his index finger along Nursey’s jaw.

Nursey laughs, “hey.” He tugs on his shirt around Dex’s neck, and Dex lifts his head up so Nursey can pull it off. He drops it on the ground and feels a jolt down his spine at the sound it makes.

“Does the lipstick look good?” Dex asks, dragging his thumb along Nursey’s bottom lip.

“Ummm… I guess so. I’ve never gotten a complaint.”

“No,” Dex’s mouth stretches into a slow smile, “I’d imagine you haven’t.”

Nursey feels himself start to flush, his head drooping down a little too close to Dex’s face to be an accident. “Do you want to see?”

“What?” Dex looks dazed, his hand is still on Nursey’s face.

“How the lipstick looks,” Nursey reminds, his mouth dry.

“Oh. Yeah, sure.”

Nursey leans back, his legs settling on either side of Dex’s waist as he plucks the lipstick from where it was half-wedged beneath Dex’s back. Pulling his phone out of his back pocket, he holds it in front of his face and flicks off the cap. It spreads across his lips with some difficulty, the tip slightly mashed from his previous escapades. 

The lines aren’t as neat as they could be - he messes up at his cupid’s bow like always - but when he drops his phone on the carpet next to him to look down, Dex’s mouth is slightly open.

“What?” Nursey asks, grinning, because he knows exactly what.

Dex sits all the way up, hooking his fingers in Nursey’s belt loops and tugging him more firmly into his lap. His eyes are suddenly sharper as they move over Nursey’s face. “Kiss me.” Nursey likes that Dex doesn’t have to say much, that he doesn’t scaffold his sentences like he’s got something to hide.

“You’ll mess up my lipstick,” Nursey teases.

“I don’t really care,” Dex says back, his hands already sliding up Nursey’s neck to tangle in his hair.

“We have to start getting ready for the party soon.”

“Still really don’t care.”

“You’re kind of an asshole.”

“I know. It scares me how much you’re into it.”

Nursey kisses him so he’ll be quiet. His hands move down Dex’s stomach and they come away red, red, red.

**iii.**

Nursey’s first date to his mother’s annual office New Year’s party was a pretty girl from his political theory seminar. Harmeet was, in short, perfect. She wore a modest but stylish green dress, talked about Nicomachean Ethics more than the sit-in she’d staged on campus earlier that year, and when Nursey had wanted to bunk the rest of the party to go hang out on the roof, she’d offered the edibles in her purse as entertainment.

It set a kind of high bar. An unfairly high bar. Because even though the partners at his mothers’ firm should be more inclined to like an awkward, STEM oriented white guy than the outspoken woman of color he’d brought the year before, Dex had a funny way of making everyone uncomfortable before he’d even opened his mouth.

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean to imply that polling doesn’t have value! I understand the work your son does is extremely important, it’s just some of the economic indicators used by-“

Nursey is barely stifling his laughter. It’s like watching one of those birds who doesn’t realize there’s glass in front of it and it just keeps ramming into the window over.

“Well, sir, I wouldn’t be able to go to school off Pell Grants, it’s one of the few government spending programs that-“

And over.

“I’m sorry, what is Tapenade?”

And over.

“What are the chances, that your son would be number thirty-five. I swear I didn’t mean to check him that hard, you know how it gets on the ice-“

Nursey doesn’t particularly care that Mr. Bloomington looks like he’s about to have a conniption, but he does worry for the champagne flute probably about to break in Dex’s death grip. He downs the contents of his own glass and crosses the room in four quick strides, sliding in beside Dex and placing a steadying hand on his lower back. Dex’s posture loosens just a bit and Nursey’s mouth ticks up in a smile.

“Hey babe,” Nursey says, pressing a smiling kiss to Dex’s temple, “how’s it going over here?”

Dex glares at him and pinches his thigh under the table, and it takes everything Nursey has not to yelp.

“I’m sorry to steal such a charmer away from you guys, but it’s almost midnight, and I know office PDA isn’t allowed.”

Dex is unsuccessful in covering up his snort with a cough but the horrified look on Mr. Bloomington’s face is priceless. So is the way Dex presses his smile into Nursey’s shoulder as they duck through the throng of people in the main ballroom, Nursey pulling him along, their fingers clasped loosely together.

“God, you couldn’t have jumped in earlier?” Dex all but growls as Nursey closes the double doors to the balcony behind them. “I was dying back there.”

“I could have,” Nursey admits, looping his arms around Dex’s waist and pushing him against the railing. Dex scowls, but allows Nursey to press a few languid kisses on his neck, “but you were teaching them so much.”

“Sadist,” Dex snaps, his hand curling around Nursey’s hip.

“Gorgeous,” Nursey croons, tugging gently at Dex’s tie and pressing a kiss to his scowling mouth.

“Seriously, what is Tapenade?” Dex asks as Nursey kisses his way down to his collar.

“It’s like an olive spread.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? That guy acted like it was the most complicated thing in the world. Like it would take a culinary degree to understand it. And it’s just fucking olive spread?”

“You’re a saint, baby,” Nursey grins, tucking his hands in Dex’s back pockets.

“Yeah fuck you but you’re goddamn right I am. I don’t know how your mom deals with these people on a daily basis. This is really how you spend every New Years?”

“Watching you embarrass a bunch of old men in a perfectly tailored suit? No, no it is not.”

Dex rolls his eyes but presses his forehead against Nursey’s with a smile. His eyes are darker and softer in the bluish New York city light. Nursey searches for the right words to describe them, but Dex’s lips brush against his pulse and he gets distracted.

He hears people counting down inside, and he pulls back to find Dex still frowning.

“What is it now?” he asks with a smile, brushing some of Dex’s hair off his forehead.

_Three_

“I just feel kind of stupid,” Dex admits, his fingers curling a little tighter in Nursey’s jacket, “how many New Years’ did I waste not kissing you, you know?”

_Two_

Nursey hides his blush by ducking in for a kiss. Dex’s mouth is hot and soft and Nursey moves his hands from the modest place on his back just past the waistband of his pants.

_One_

When they pull apart, Dex is blushing too. “Chill, Poindexter,” Nursey starts, relishing in the frown that immediately springs to Dex’s face, “we’ve got all the time in the world now.”

**iv.**

Nursey lets Dex hold his hand when he calls his dad the next morning.

He calls his dad twice a year. Once after New Years and once on Father’s day. They talk for fifteen minutes exactly, and never about anything important. His mothers have insisted year after year that it’s unnecessary, that he doesn’t have to put himself through that anymore, but Nursey, well. Nursey doesn’t want to lose touch with these different pieces of himself, doesn’t want… to feel like less of a person.

And he likes to suffer. That’s what Dex says, at least.

He wishes Indra was home. Bella is great and warm and beautiful and she gives amazing hugs, but right now he needs Indra’s hands on his shoulders telling him he’s going to be okay, that he has it more together than he thinks he does. He thinks of calling her, but she’s probably still on the plane.

Just a few more hours and they’ll pick her up from the airport. He can make it a few more hours, especially with Dex here, drawing little circles on his ankle.

He doesn’t ask if Nursey’s okay, and Nursey is grateful.

“Do you like dogs?” he says instead.

Nursey blinks a few times. “What?”

“Dogs,” Dex repeats, as if that clears anything up. He looks down at Nursey’s ankle, his circles speeding up a little. Nursey interprets it as nervousness. “I think I want pets, when I’m older.”

 _Oh_ , Nursey thinks. Something warm spreads in his chest.

“We could get a dog,” he says quietly, his smile a tenuous thing.

“Okay,” Dex agrees, finally looking back up to meet Nursey’s eyes. His mouth tips in a wry smile, “we’re not naming it after a fucking poet or something.”

“Mm,” Nursey hums, pulling Dex forward by the front of his shirt, “Jane Austen character it is.”

Dex is fighting a smile when he kisses Nursey’s nose and tells him to shut the fuck up, but Nursey doesn’t bother.

**v.**

Parents are genetically predisposed to worry about their children, but Indra Nurse thinks she worries more than most.

This is because Derek is soft. She loves that he’s soft, loves that he mumbles poetry under his breath to calm himself down, loves that he likes to rest his head in her lap while she does paperwork, loves that he carries around a notebook full of the little things he loves about the world tucked safely in his back pocket.

But he is softer than she or her wife ever let themselves be, ever had the opportunity to be. So she worries. Because as gorgeous as his sun-soaked smiles are, he’s also highly susceptible to heartbreak.

She is wary of the boy he brings home for New Years. The way his hands curl into fists at his sides, the jerky way he speaks, the stiffness about him - it all rings similar to the boys from Andover, the boys who used Derek to figure out who they were and then left him in the dust the first opportunity.

So she hasn’t been as nice as she probably should be to him. It’s understandable.

“Indie, that was brutal,” her wife Bella tells her, flipping the switch on the bathroom light and crawling into their bed, the memory foam dipping beneath her slender brown legs, “you promised you’d be nice.”

“I don’t like him,” Indra says shortly, pushing her glasses up on her nose.

“I don’t know why, he seemed like a perfectly nice boy, if a little awkward.”

“He doesn’t… He’s not gentle enough,” Indra explains, placing a hand on her wife’s arm. Bella stares at her with lidded brown eyes, vaguely judgmental. Indra scowls, “Derek needs someone gentle! You know how he gets.”

“He’s a person, Indie, not a crystalline wine glass.”

“I don’t want him getting hurt.”

Bella’s judgement gains a sympathetic edge, and she gives Indra’s arm a small squeeze, “I know, baby. But back there? You weren’t even giving him a chance to prove himself.”

“You want me to apologize,” Indra guesses.

Bella doesn’t say anything, just smiles and pinches her arm, the skin reddening between her navy fingernails. Indra scowls again.

“Fine,” she grumbles, throwing off the covers and slipping out of bed, “but I still don’t like him.”

“You don’t even know him,” Bella sing songs, blowing her a kiss as she slips through the bedroom doors. Indra makes sure her wife sees her eye roll before she closes them.

**vi.**

Indra pads her way back to the kitchen, but freezes just shy of the entry way, momentarily distracted by the sound of her son’s quiet laughter.

She pauses, taking in the sight before her. Derek is sitting on the counter and The Boy, Will, is washing dishes with his dress shirt rolled up to his elbows. She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, except that she 100% absolutely does.

“Seriously, Nursey, I should just leave! She hates me. I have never in my life met someone who hated me more, and my great grandpa with dementia once hallucinated he was back in the war, and I was a Vietnamese soldier!”

Derek is smiling his sun-soaked smile, his hand resting lightly on his stomach, fixing his boyfriend with a look that is unbearably fond.

 _Oh_ , Indra thinks to herself. _Oh_.

“She doesn’t hate you. I just told you, she’s prickly.”

“Prickly?” Will sounds incredulous, setting down one of the soapy dishes so he can gesticulate better, “I honest to god thought she was going to pull her butter knife on me.”

“Don’t be dramatic, babe,” Derek grins, sliding off the kitchen counter and pressing up against Will, “I think she was just a little thrown by you.”

“Wh- how? I made extra sure not to come off even remotely conservative.”

“You did good,” Derek assures, nosing along the side of Will’s cheek. He seems to get a little less stiff at this, turning his head to press a kiss on Derek’s forehead. “It’s not the conservative thing, I’ve just never brought a boy home before. Much less a white boy. She was probably just surprised.”

“She hates me,” Will says miserably, wriggling out of Derek’s grasp to put the last of the dishes in the washer.

“Doesn’t really matter,” Derek says, tugging Will back against him. He goes easy, his arms wrapping loosely around Derek’s waist, “I don’t hate you.”

Will raises an eyebrow, “yeah?”

“Yeah,” Derek promises, kissing Will again, a little longer and a little softer this time. He tries to take a step back but Will makes a noise of dissent against his mouth, and Indra realizes it’s because he was about to trip over the washing machine. A smile she didn’t see coming tips the corner of her mouth.

When they pull away, Will’s face is just as soft as Derek. He brushes his thumb along the skin beneath Derek’s eye and they seem to have a conversation just looking at each other, light flickering in their eyes, hands skipping to places definitely not appropriate for the kitchen.

“I’m heading to bed,” Derek tells him, “you’ll come soon?” His face is open and vulnerable and completely hopeless. Indra feels her fear spike up again.

“Where else am I gonna go, dumbass?”

Indra doesn’t understand why, exactly, but this seems to put her son at ease like nothing else, his face melting back into that dopey yet coveted newly-in-love smile.

She realizes, watching the affection on Will’s face as Derek stumbles from the kitchen to his room, that just maybe she has nothing to worry about.

She gives Will a couple minutes to stare dopily at her son’s retreating figure before making her way into the light of the kitchen with deliberate noise. She feels a small pang of guilt at the way the poor kid seems to blanche at the mere sight of her.

“H-hi, Mrs. Nurse. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

He’s stiff and awkward again, but it’s not enough to make Indra forget the unadulterated happiness on his face just moments before. She offers him a careful, wry smile.

“At ease, Poindexter. Just grabbing a couple of glasses of water.”

Will opens his mouth to say something but closes it just as quick, wordlessly handing Indra two glasses from the washer. She nods in gratitude, coming to stand next to him at the sink as she fills them up. They fall into silence for a moment.

“Sorry,” she says finally, shutting off the tap and turning to face him. He still looks a little scared, “if I was a little rough at dinner today. I had a tough deposition in the morning and the flight from Dubai was brutal. And, don’t tell Derek, but I definitely forgot you were coming tonight. I just wasn’t ready.”

Will nods, a small smile forming on his face, “I won’t say anything.”

They fall silent again. It’s Will who breaks it this time.

His voice is soft and fragile enough to warrant a glance out of the corner of Indra’s eyes. She finds someone unsure and maybe a little shy, hands braced against the counter as if to hold himself up.

“Don’t tell Nursey this either, but,” he pauses, turning his head to catch Indra’s eyes, “I, uh. Really, really love him.”

And Indra finds, as she pats his hand and offers a small, reassuring smile in response, that she’s not surprised in the least.

**Author's Note:**

> happy new years pals. how did i fall so deep into this whole in a span of mere months who knows????? title is from auld lang syne, obvs.
> 
> on tumblr here: http://quidhitch.tumblr.com/post/155179429437/pulled-the-daisies-fine-nurseydex


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